Budget Standoff Is Seen as Peril to Toledo Reforms

The Toledo Federation of Teachers and the city school district are
at a bitter standoff over budget cuts the union says would devastate
many of the jointly operated school-reform programs that have brought
the Ohio district national acclaim.

A state fact-finder was scheduled to meet with both parties this
week in an attempt to resolve the dispute. In the meantime, budget
reductions that the district has agreed upon with its two other
employee unions will not take effect until the teachers' contract is
settled.

Toledo, like several other large cities in Ohio, is facing severe
budget cuts as a result of the failure of a tax levy last November.

Gerald Biernacki, the district's assistant superintendent for
curriculum and administrative personnel, said the school system has
proposed cutting $12 million over the next 18 months to balance its
budget.

The stalled progress over the teaching contract, he said, is costing
the district $8,500 a day in savings that were to have begun in
mid-January.

The grim situation may change in May, however, when voters will be
asked to approve a three-year, 6.9-mill emergency tax levy. In
November, they rejected a 9.9-mill tax hike that would have enabled the
40,470-student district to continue operating its current programs.

But district officials and the Toledo Federation of Teachers are
accusing each other of souring the chances for passage of the levy by
refusing to eliminate favored expenditures.

In presenting a possible list of programs to cut, the school board
named Toledo's intern-intervention program, in which experienced
teachers evaluate new teachers. The program has been considered a model
of teacher professionalism.

Also targeted were several other jointly administered programs,
including a project at Scott High School in which students stay with
the same academic teachers for four years, and a research project on
teaching junior-high mathematics that is run with the assistance of
Michigan State University.

Mr. Biernacki said the programs were chosen because they are not
required by either the state or the federal government, and not because
the district does not support them.

The school board has pledged to restore several such
programs--including the evaluation program--if the May levy passes,
said Brenda Facey, the board's president.

"We were not intending, nor do we intend, to try to eliminate some
of the reform programs we've been known for nationally," Ms. Facey
said. "We're very proud of them."

The teachers' union rejected the board's proposed cuts and suggested
some of its own, including eliminating a $2-million cafeteria subsidy,
ending certain perquisites given to top administrators, and temporarily
laying off some middle managers to balance expected teacher
layoffs.

When the school board rejected this counterproposal, said Dal
Lawrence, president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers, the
negotiations deteriorated.

Mr. Lawrence said he believed that the district's estimates of how
much must be cut from the budget were "grossly inflated."

According to the union leader, the approximately $280,000 that the
district spends to provide longevity bonuses, car allowances,
life-insurance stipends, and professional memberships to top
administrators would cover the cost of several of the programs targeted
for elimination.

"There's a real drive and effort to get the district to return to
the old industrial model with strong principals and no shared
decisionmaking," asserted Mr. Lawrence, who noted that the district is
using a new negotiator to handle the teachers' contract.

The school board, meanwhile, has reached accords on reductions with
its other unions.

The Toledo Association of Administrative Personnel, which represents
most of the district's administrators, has agreed to eliminate 40.5
positions, or 11.5 percent of the administrative staff, Mr. Biernacki
said.

The union representing nonteaching employees has approved laying off
122 people, or 9 percent of its membership.

The district is asking the teachers' union to consider a reduction
of 219.5 teachers and paraprofessionals, which includes teachers whose
jobs will be eliminated when two of the city's high schools are closed.
Some 60 teachers' aides who work with the Writing to Read program are
scheduled to lose their jobs when that program is eliminated.

The teachers have sought to make administrative perquisites a key
issue in the dispute.

The district has not considered doing away with the perquisites
given to the superintendent's "extended cabinet," Mr. Biernacki, the
assistant superintendent, said.

Mr. Lawrence of the teachers' union suggested that the tax levy is
in jeopardy because voters are outraged that the district is protecting
its administrative staff from the budget ax.

But Ms. Facey, the school-board president, accused the teachers'
union of endangering the levy effort by appearing intransigent and
unwilling to do its part to help the district through the fiscal
crisis.

The union also has been "all over the place" in discussing which
cuts it would allow, she maintained.

"We don't have the complete support of all of our employees as we
approach May 7," the date of the levy vote, Ms. Facey said, "and that
concerns me a great deal."

If the levy does not pass, the district is facing the possibility of
eliminating all of its athletic programs, in addition to cuts already
being made.

Mr. Lawrence contended that the district has not been honest about
the extent of the reductions in its administrative force. Of the 40.5
positions that it says are being cut, he said, 14 have been vacant for
up to three years.

Mr. Biernacki said that in addition to the 40 positions, two top
administrative positions have not been filled and three others may be
cut if the May levy fails.

The assistant superintendent noted that 10 other central-office
employees have been reassigned to work in schools to correct an
imbalance between the number of administrators in the system and the
steadily declining number of students enrolled.

However, Mr. Lawrence charged that in making the shift, the district
guaranteed the 10 employees that their incomes would not be
reduced.

David McClellan, president of the administrators' union, asserted
that the teachers' federation was being "absolutely irresponsible" in
its dealings with the school district.

He suggested that part of the friction might be due to the challenge
posed to Mr. Lawrence by the district's forceful new
superintendent.

"A number of people would tell you that for the past 10 years, Dal
Lawrence has pretty much run the district," Mr. McClellan said.

But Mr. Lawrence said he believed some of the tension was the result
of maneuvering by former politicians who want to see the district
disbanded and its students absorbed into suburban systems.

Vol. 10, Issue 24, Page 1, 20

Published in Print: March 6, 1991, as Budget Standoff Is Seen as Peril to Toledo Reforms

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